


Curtain Call

by methylviolet10b



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M, Prompt Fic, Story: His Last Bow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:49:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4472966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft Holmes reads one missive and drafts another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curtain Call

**Author's Note:**

> Written for JWP #31: Putting On a Show.  
> Warnings: Apparently Mycroft Holmes wanted a word today. Assumes knowledge of His Last Bow. And absolutely no beta. This was written in a huge rush. You have been warned.

I set down the latest dispatch with a sigh. I no longer read documents with ease, even with my reading spectacles, but I trusted this correspondence and the codes that were key to its description to none but myself.  It was, after all, a matter of life and death: the continued life and well-being of my country in the face of certain oncoming war; and the life of my younger, though no longer young, brother in the deadly game he played for King and Country.  
  
A brother I had not seen in two years. Not since I sent him out on the most dangerous case of his career.  
  
Oh, he would not say I sent him. He would say he volunteered. And technically, that was indeed so; but I knew my brother better than almost any man alive. I knew his love of intrigue, and his inability to resist performing before an audience, as well as his very deep and real patriotism. It was I who sent the Premier to his Sussex door, along with a penned missive from His Majesty, King George. I knew that my brother would never be able to resist the combination, and I was right. He went, despite being ‘retired’, despite the rheumatism that pained him more mornings than not, despite his very real contentment and joy in his settled Sussex life.  
  
Despite all he had to leave behind.  
  
And now his work was almost done. The affair was at its crisis. All was nearly ready. There only remained one major player, and Sherlock wanted to bring him in himself. He only required a car to take him from Harwich to Von Bork’s estate – and a bit of extra muscle, as he said in his Americanized slang, in case things grew too hot for him and Martha to handle.  
  
I snorted. I knew what Sherlock truly needed, and it was not a burly young agent playing chauffeur. He needed an audience. The _correct_ audience. The audience that had never said a word against his going, would never have dreamed of doing so, despite the very real consequences for himself. His sense of duty was easily the equal of my own and Sherlock’s, and he had played his own part faithfully and well these last two years (and for nearly thirty years before that).  
  
I quickly drafted a carefully-worded telegram and then summoned my secretary to have it sent immediately to one Doctor John H. Watson, currently of London, though not intending to be so for very much longer. I knew of his noble intentions, and out of respect for the man I would not block them. However, for my brother’s sake as well as his own, I would do what I could to ensure that his re-enlistment and subsequent service was in a place where he would be of the best use to _all_ concerned.  
  
My brother would find many changes awaiting him. I would soften what blows I could, though I could not avert them all; Watson’s upcoming involvement in the war, the honours that would be bestowed on Sherlock (and myself, as much as I had resisted the idea for both of us; His Majesty was far more insistent upon this point than his grandmother or father had been, and this was one Bath neither of us would be able to avoid), the regrettable state of his once-thriving hives. The war itself, which despite both our efforts, was now impossible to avoid.  
  
And I would offer what comforts I could. Primary among them: an audience of one for this final act in the years-long drama. A very small audience, to be sure, but for Sherlock Holmes, the best possible one of all.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted July 31, 2015


End file.
